Greetings! It's a few days after Labor Day, the semi-official end of summer. In the era of full skirts, white gloves, small waists, and Grace Kelly, one didn't wear white after Labor Day. Perhaps one wouldn't have worn pink either. But nowadays, who's looking? Monday, in Portland, Maine, except for a telltale yellow or red leaf, and a certain slant to the late afternoon light, it could have been full summer. I was glad of that because this little cardigan has been a full summer in the making. It kept getting placed on the back burner, untilOh dearit was the first day in September. Since we're introducing it now, we'll just call it a transitional piece. After all, it's worked in wool (!), a soft-to-the- touch merino we call classic one fifty.

The Story:

classic one fifty Cardigan

I like knitted lace, all kindscurly and fanciful, graphic and geometric, panels, allover, or here and there. Sometimes I’m in the mood for something ultra feminine and pretty, and sometimes I want something, like the stitch in our classic one fifty Cardigan, that doesn’t cry ‘girl.’ The simple stitch used in this cardi is quick and easy to work. Although you work yarn overs and decreases on both right- and wrong-side rowsthe good news is that there are only two rows in the pattern. You don’t need to follow a chart or find a cell with limited distractions in order to work it. You’ll quickly get the hang of the stitch and your fingers will make their way along the needles without a hitch.

The sweater knits up quickly (if you don’t keep returning it to the back burner). It’s worked in one piece to the armhole; then the fronts and back are knitted separately. The front bands are picked up along the center fronts and knitted in a 1 x 1 rib to go with the sleeve and sweater borders. A little collar, edged with two garter-stitch ridges gives the sweater more character. If you look closely at the collar, you’ll see that there are little eyelets at the rounded ends; these are made by working short rows without wrapping the last stitch. You might call it the lazy short-row technique. Here is some more info on short rows.

Our classic one fifty Cardigan is worked in a variation of the most basic of lace stitches, faggot stitch. Faggot stitches use only yarn overs and decreases and most often, you work the same combination of yarn over and decrease on every row. Used allover, they create a mesh-like fabric like the one here. The specific pattern used in this sweater, Rickrack Faggoting from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, alternates decreases that slant in different directions. On right side rows, ssk’s slant to the left; on wrong side rows, p2tog’s make a dec that slants to the right when viewed on the right side. Here is some more info on yarnovers and decrease stitches.